When Worlds Collide | Why I don't need a lock-in amp | COLLIDE 4 Ep. 03

video upload by Cinematic Laboratory

Cinematic+Laboratory+COLLIDE+4

"I didn't realize my episode 01 was about three weeks ago. It felt like three months or more. As you may know, this channel is not sponsored and I usually do my research before I buy a module. So far, it didn't work out well and since I am planning to clean-up my collection in 2025, it ended up on my 'may need to go' list.

Don't get me wrong, I think it deserves the 2024 eurorack design award. It's just me not getting along very well. It's advertised as a lock-in amp, but its main purpose is kind of useless in electronic music. So it's meant to be creatively 'abused' and 'repurposed'. Please note I am not trying to use it as a lock-in amp, I am exploring new creative ways to use it.

Instead of making sure your delicate faint source doesn't clip, you'd go for 30 dB gain compensation, turn up the resonance and then gain the filter some more. It's designed to isolate a faint sinewave hiding in a wall of noise and extract phase and amplitude. But why should we even want to do that? And then there's a simple ringmod, a relatively simple sine VCO with TZFM support and some logic. It can't process stereo signals because it will cancel out your center information.

Since I have a huge collection of modules, I always wondered about making my own 'recipe' with a separate amp, filter, frequency shifter, ring mod and quadrature VCO. I think I came a long way this time, only enforcing the idea that the C4 is 'obsolete' in my collection. So even though it's an excellent module, you'll need to double check if you can build one with separates. It wouldn't be a lock-in amp, but I truly believe I don't need one in its designated role and I will explain why.

If you do not agree, PLEASE don't just dislike this video, but share your tips and patching tricks, so the community will be able to learn how to appreciate it - including myself.

And then I hooked up the C4 with my improvised version, and a wonderful world of magic opened up. It was so good that I decided to keep the C4 after all, and follow that path. So it's an all over-the-place personal struggle video, but I think it's real and honest. We all end up struggling from time to time. However, my number 1 rule is 'when you feel a module sounds bad, you're not patching it right'. It's not always true, but it encourages me to try things.

Hainbach is a master in restoring life to old 'crap' we'd throw away as trash, and I love his work. But I am not Hainbach and he's not included in the box. I can only stumble in his footsteps. Fortunately, I can just be myself and do my own thing. Just like there's nobody like YOU either."

COLLIDE 4 | Episode 04 | Post-Collision Course

video upload by Cinematic Laboratory

"I felt I had to make this episode before anything else. In episode 03 I posed the question whether or not I'd need a 'lock-in amp' in eurorack. I got myself into kind of a rut after making two episodes, wondering if I made the right decision to get one. And if this happens, I need to openly reflect on that because there's something to learn from it. If it happens to me, it will definitely happen to you too, because I make these mistakes for a living.

By all means I never meant to say 'do we need a C4'. It depends on your own journey. It turns out Hainbach needs four. Blush Response definitely loved every single HP of it. For his genre and style, the C4 immediately delivers. Truckloads of it.

I was hoping to open a discussion and learn from others, but I've also seen signs of the wasp-nest cancel-culture. I've seen comments I had to delete and I permanently muted some. I do not allow any insults to me, my fellow youtubers and beloved manufacturers. To anyone. But I am too old to get angry about it, or take the insults personally. I learn from personal opinions, I learn from revising my own conclusions, and I always rectify a few episodes later, sharing any new insights. This is a good example.

I kind of promised if there would ever be an episode 04, it would be about a C8, a dual COLLIDE 4. I'll need to work some more on that, but the lab now has two. I had to pay for both of them myself, so there's no 'paid promotion' of any kind. There were no discounts. This is also why it's so much fun to run this channel. I try to be honest, but I can't be objective. I don't ever want you to buy two because I did. I want you to know what you're getting yourself into. The COLLIDE 4 is an open platform. It has no intended use except the scientific measurements of cyclic waveforms in noise. What you get out of it is what you dialed and patched in.

Thanks for your patience and resilience, and be nice to each other."